The Family of God

This is the song I woke up to this morning:

If your church isn’t like this, or you don’t even have a church family, I promise you that there are still good churches out there who will welcome you as part of the family.

Sunday Morning Coffee: A Bit Late

Terry and I made a mutual decision to stay home from church this morning. Neither of us likes to do that, but I was not willing to leave him on his own yet, and he wasn’t sure he was ready to make the drive himself. So here we are. To my own surprise, I slept until 11:45 this morning!

He is showing improvement every day. I’m so thankful!

We have a gorgeous spring day, clear skies and 69F. It doesn’t get any better than this. I’ve spent time in my Bible this morning, and time in prayer, deliberately choosing to thank God for every blessing in my life that I could think of. There are many.

And that’s about it for today. God is good, all the time. Even when things don’t go the way we think they should, God is always good.

Sunday Morning Coffee: He is Risen!

He is risen, indeed!

Sunday Morning Coffee: Easter Music

It’s Palm Sunday tomorrow, and there will be a little extra music in the service. Our choir is presenting a couple of songs relating to the events of Palm Sunday and the following week. My son Mike will sing Behold the Man, a powerful song honoring the work Jesus did on the cross. The offertory will be a piano piece called Easter Medley. It is made up of Near the Cross, What can Wash Away My Sin, Are You washed in the Blood of the Lamb, and a few notes from It is Well With My Soul. There will be special scripture readings.

I love the music of Easter. Next Sunday will be the celebration of His resurrection, and the songs will reflect the joy of that event.

I have often considered how my life has been full of wonderful music. Not just one kind of music, but all different varieties. My dad love western music. Mom enjoyed classical music. I love really great movie themes, and there are a lot of them. I also love Southern gospel–not the twangy scoopy stuff, but the classy kind that is full of heart and joy. I’m not a huge fan of opera, but there are some arias I love.

I love Chopin, Tchaikowsky, Rachmanninoff, and Beethoven. I like music that is BIG, and gives me goose bumps. I love patriotic music that is performed well. I can still sing dozens of TV ads that I heard as a child and a teen before I left for college. I still remember the theme music for all the westerns my dad enjoyed watching–Gunsmoke, Sugar Foot, Bonanza, Rawhide, and Wyatt Earp. Music tends to stay in my brain, and something I’d completely forgotten can work its way out of a crevice and surprise me 🙂

I do love the music of the Easter season, and I’m looking forward to services tomorrow. I’m thankful for a God Who, in love and kindness, gave us the gift of music!

Sunday Morning Coffee: It’s Getting Better!

It took most of the week, but I think my body is finally adjusting to the time change. Doesn’t mean I like it. Just getting adapted to it 🙂

I really don’t have anything much on my mind this morning, so I’m not going to push it past what my old brain can handle. Music is always my go-to. This song is on my mind because my son is going to sing it next week. I love the song, love that he’s singing it 🙂

Sunday Morning Coffee: A Great Hymn

So this morning, I woke up quite early with the melody of the wonderful hymn playing in my head. I mean, I could literally hear the music–a real pipe organ, trumpets and violins and baritones and drums. It was quite an orchestra, and I suspect it will be with me for quite some time.

I urge you to pay special attention to the words. Especially the third verse.

Sunday Morning Coffee: More Ponderings :)

So today is my sister’s birthday. My MUCH OLDER sister. She has a whole 2 1/2 years on me. I hope she’ll have a wonderful day :) Happy birthday, Sandy!

Our father died when he was only 70. Heart disease, among other maladies. Mom lived to be 87, nearly 20 years after Dad went to heaven. She never stopped missing him. My nephew was killed in a drunk driving accident when he was only 23. My brother died at 49 when he lost control of his truck because, very likely, he was having severe angina (heart pain).

So Sandy and I are the “survivors,” if you will, and are coming face to face with the reality of being much closer to heaven than we are to having many years ahead of us here on earth.

And you know? That’s perfectly okay!
Don’t misunderstand. I don’t have a death wish. I enjoy my life. I believe that people in my generation have been privileged to see the last of the America in which we grew up. We had so much more personal freedom when we were kids than children are–or should be– allowed in this upside-down world we live in. Our generation did go through Viet Nam and all the ugliness that came with it. But we’ve had the freedom to enjoy our capitalist economy, to become wealthy or maintain our status quo, but to want for very little.
Of course, not everything has been ideal. Our political world is a mess. Our economy is a mess. Our “Woke-ness” has gone to the extreme of having feminine hygiene products in the boy’s bathroom in a junior high school. Our kids are endangered by the existence of evil people who want to traffic them. Men want to be women, and women want to be men. It drives them crazy that they can’t change the DNA!

The Bible tells us that the time will come when what used to be good will be considered evil, and evil will be considered good ( Isaiah 5:20). It’s not the first time in the world’s history that this has taken place, and it won’t be the last.

If you like history, perhaps you are aware that when the British had to surrender to the American army, their band played the song “The World Turned Upside Down.”

Where we have to be careful is when we object to anything simply because it’s different than it was when we were young, rearing our families and working for a living. Not everything new is bad, just as not everything old is good. We can’t compare ourselves to ourselves. We have to look at everything through the lens of God’s Word.

We need to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God!

I’m working on a piano piece, a wonderful arrangement of the hymn “Blessed Assurance.” Fanny Crosby, blinded since she was about six weeks old, wrote the words, Perfect submission, perfect delight! Visions of rapture now burst on my sight!” A woman who had no memory of ever seeing anything, anticipated what she would see when she reached heaven. I get it. And I especially love her song, “I want to see my Savior first of all!” 

Sunday Morning Coffee: Christmas Music!

I have a substantial collection of CDs, as well as vinyl, full of the most wonderful Christmas music! I have all the traditional, dearly-loved Christmas carols; a lot of secular Christmas music, which is playing right now–Andy Williams is singing The Most Wonderful Time of the Year. I also have classical Christmas music, including the entire Handel’s Messiah.

My music taste is eclectic, for sure. I enjoy Mannheim Steamroller as well as The Hallelujah Chorus 🙂

If I had to pick just one kind of Christmas music, though, it would all the traditional carols I grew up singing in church. Silent Night, O Little Town of Bethlehem, Hark the Herald Angels Sing, Joy to the World, and many others. Those songs bring back the Christmases of my childhood at Fourth Baptist Church in Minneapolis. The old auditorium, the huge pipe organ, the piano, the choir, and the congregation singing with gusto.

At the Christmas program, usually the Sunday before Christmas, there would be a program with music and recitation. At the end, all children were given a brown paper bag. It held an orange, an apple, and an assortment of Christmas candy, as well as nuts. What a treasure! Fresh fruit was a wonderful treat, and of course the candy was surely a once-a-year treat.

Because Andy Williams is singing Away in a Manger, I will leave you with that song this morning:

Sunday Morning Coffee: Christmas has Begun!

Now that the Thanksgiving turkey is picked clean and we’re recovering from an overload of football and pie, it’s time to focus on Christmas. I’ve seen posts today from people who are FINALLY enjoying their Christmas music, and many people put up their trees on Thanksgiving Friday.

AND, many people enjoy Black Friday shopping. I do not. I don’t like shopping to begin with, never have.

It’s a good thing Black Friday is not mandatory. I’d be in jail every year.
Someone has wisely said that Black Friday is ironic because it’s the exact opposite of the purpose of Thanksgiving, when we are supposedly giving thanks to God for all that we have. Then, the very next day, we go out and act like crazy people competing for tons of stuff we don’t need.

Well, that’s just my opinion, of course.
What I would really like is to see less frenzy and more thoughtfulness about what the coming season is really about. I mean, how many of the zillions of advertisements that flood our mailboxes and television sets have anything at all to do with the original reason we celebrate Christmas?

No, the season is becoming more secularized, less Christ-centered, with every passing year. Santa takes priority over Jesus. Getting lavish gifts is more important than spending time thinking about what Christmas is all about.

I’m not a Grinch. I simply wish there were more thoughtfulness and less greediness in the coming season. I love Christmas. I love the music, and the decorations, and the general sense of good will that exists among the people I know. I love the story of the birth of Jesus that is recorded so beautifully in Luke 2.

I do not love the commercialism.

Sunday Morning Coffee: The Small Things

I’m doing a daily “thankful” post on my Facebook newsfeed. This morning I said I was thankful for my toast and coffee. Small things, really, but meaningful. It is, after all, the small things that make up most of our days.

My toast is homemade bread. My coffee is green beans that I roast and grind myself. Flavor, aroma. Bliss 🙂

I glance out our front window and see a clear October sky. Yes, I know it’s November, but here in my corner of PA, the two month seem to blend together until the very end of November. This year has been gorgeous. Moderate temps, cool nights for sleeping. There is still color –not all the trees have dropped their leaves. We’ll see flock of geese winging their way south as we drive to church later this morning. At one point we’ll cross a reservoir that hosts ducks on its glassy surface. Sadly, there is roadkill at this time of year as the deer yard up. We have lots of deer, too many. They’re often very thin. The herd needs culling in order to survive the winter.

We’ll be at my daughter’s after church to celebrate my grandson’s birthday. They have a gorgeous view from their hilltop. Lots of color there, too.

I’m thankful for my amazing recliner that helps keep my back pain under control. I’m thankful for the injections I had two weeks ago that also keep the pain at bay. Thankful for my adjustable mattress that does the same job, giving me a restful night.

I’m thankful for reading glasses. One of the side effects of cataract removal is that you’ll probably need reading glasses for the smaller print. But that’s okay. Without the surgery, I may be at least partially blind by now.

I could go on for some time. When you start thinking about the small things for which to be thankful, the list grows quite long.